XL1 / XL1S various posts

[Barry Stokes]

I bought a new XL1S and a screw-on .7 wide lens to go with it. The lens only gives me a slightly wider field than the original zoom lens that came with the camera. I exchanged it for a .4 wide angle and it gives me a much wider shot, but I can't zoom through it. It goes out of focus and I can't focus it either in automatic or manual. Can anyone educate me on what wide angle lens I need that gives me a significantly wider field and will allow me to zoom through it as well?

[Barry Gribble]

Canon makes a 3x wide angle lens that works well... I shoot with it a lot. It gives you a fair bit of zoom, but of course not nearly as much as the stock 16x. The wide is pretty darned wide tho...

The pop up on EBay pretty frequently in the $800-$1000 range...

Good luck.

[Richard Alvarez]

Got the lens back from Canon yesterday, and spoke to a rep today. They replaced a fuse, and the noise dissapeared. He stressed again, that there are no know compatibility issues between the XL1 and the Manual 16x lens.

[William Ambrico]

okay I just saw a company that has a new firewire harddrive set up to capture video through a XL1S. it's called focusinfo.com.
Now my question is: it appears that the live footage gets recorded directly to the firewire harddrive, then they offer various geegaws as a play back system to play down the footage once it's on the harddrive, So, is it possible to forgo this whole concept and connect a firewire drive to the fire wire port on the side of the camera and just shoot and record straight to the drive without having to use this companies additional equipment?

[Christopher Hughes]

I remember being involved in some threads here, as well as looking for info here about Pelican case for my XL1s and if it would be adequate for my needs. SO I thought that I would post my findings so that it may benefit others wanting protection for the XL1s.

The case I got is the Pelican 1650, the second from largest. The specs can be seen on the Pelican website. I has wheels and a pull out handle to pull it, that is also locked. There is 6 clamps on the case that are tighter than a ducks ass. The valve is now automatic so no need to worry about that. It has the "pick and pluck" foam in two layers on the 1650.

So what can it hold? Well I drew cardboard templates for my gear to position them all around to get the best position for the maximum space usage. So I have fitted nicely in the case the following, I will list all items as they appear in the case so you know whats split or unscrewed, etc to be fitted into the case the best way:

- Canon XL1s body
- 16x Auto (standard) Lens
- standard lens hood
- Standard eyepiece / Mic holder
- MA-200 shoulder mount/4 XLR adapter
- Electrical Mains unit and plug.
- XL1s standard Microphone
- Audiotechnica AT635b mic
- Sennheiser MKE300 mic, along with Rycote windjammer.
- 2 x Tiffen circular 72mm filters
- 2 x Large XL1 batteries
- Mic hotshoe mount
- 0.5m XLR mic cable
- Sony PC100 camcorder
- 2 x Sony M batteries
- Sony PC100 electric mains unit
- Sony High Quality Wideangle adapter
- 6 x MiniDV tapes
- RCA/Composite cable
- Sony RCA/Composite cable
- few AA batteries

I'm sure I missed off something, anyway there is still a little room left to put in some things else, like filters or perhaps my lens adapter for XL1s when I get round to getting money for one, or something else.

So as you can see its a great case to carry around a small arsenal of XL1 gear. The cases is dead tough as can be expected.

My only complaint is that there are only 2 wheels...I wish there were 4...then I could have the skateboarding version of a tank! It would look really good skating from your car to the the scene location on top of a rocksolid case or a bit downhill tobogan for those countyside shots.

As you can tell I'm chuffed to bits over my new case...or as americans would put it...Its awesome!!

[Aaron Rosen]

I would love to see some pics.

[Christopher Hughes]

my Digi Cam is out on loan, but may be able to send you some pics later in the week. I know where your coming from, cos I searched for ages to try and get a decent picture, but was unsuccessful. I actually bought the case not ever seeing it, or seeing how it looked in person for size and all. Pelican gives it all in Inches. But its hard to envisage inches and size, especially when everythingelse is in milimetres over here.

[AJ Briones]

Hi everyone,

I'm a newbie here, and this is my first post. I got an amazing deal on an XL1 over ebay, but it is missing the lens cap. It's in pretty good condition, and I want to keep it that way, so I'm wondering where I can go to get a replacement lens cap for it.

I've scoured the web but haven't found any leads. Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance.

[Christopher Hughes]

the Lens in 72mm so you should be able to get a cap at any camera shop will sell a 72mmm lens cap. You dont necessarily need a Canon one, just any one will fit.

[Teague Chrystie]

I've seen replacement caps on the big E - B - A -Y for like $7.00, man. Welcome to the board. (I'm a newbie here, but I can still welcome newer newbies. (:-P))

EDIT: Actually, I've had issues with my XL-1s cap. Does anyone else have fitting problems? I almost have to screw mine in at times. Very odd.

[Rob Lohman]

No. A "normal" harddisk will not see the camera and vice versa.
Those companies add a special interface to let these two pieces
"talk" to each other.

[Chris Hurd]

Hi William,

We have an entire forum dedicated to the FireStore from focusinfo.com -- you can browse through it at this location, and please post any FireStore-related questions directly to that forum.

Basically it records an *edit ready* file directly to the hard drive. The key concept is that the data is ready to edit, no video capture required. Hope this helps,

[Dennis Hingsberg]

I thought XL1s fans might enjoy this too so enjoy this re-post from the "The Tools of DV Production area"!

We finally received our mini 35 and yesterday I was able to shoot some test video for an upcoming production and post screen images and test video footage here www.starcentral.ca/mini35rig.htm. There are also some full size screen shots available there which I know some people wanted to see.

Please let me know what you think of the images.

Many questions on the settings used, etc.. are answered on the site so please have a look but otherwise feel free to post and I'll see if I can help.

On a final note I'd like to thank Mizell and Christine over at ZGC for helping us at Star Central Productions. We thank both of you for the tremendous amount of help and support on a product that is probably still not all that well understood by many, yet over the last couple of months you've helped us learn everything there is to know about it in detail. You guys really have been great! Thanks again!

[Tom Prigge]

Tapes given to me recorded on studio decks are not playing back properly in my XL1s. They look like they are in slow motion, and I cannot get any audio from them. This problem has occurred with tapes from two different production houses. I don't have a DV studio deck, so I use the XL1s as playback to record onto an S-VHS deck. Is there a setting I'm missing? The viewfinder indicators show that I am playing back in SP. Also, I have determined that the problem is not the 1/5 playback mode you can access through the remote control. Any help appreciated.

[Ken Tanaka]

I am assuming you are talking about miniDV-size tape cassettes?

Call the studio and ask what format they used to record the tapes. Standard DV? DVCAM? Etc.